At least 92 civil servants in Central China's Hunan Province have been busted for using or dealing drugs this year, most of whom were grass-roots officials.
Some of these officials worked at city or county levels, but the majority were at village or township levels. They were found using, selling or producing drugs, including methamphetamine, or meth, magu and ketamine, while some were found to have allowed others to use drugs in their accommodation, The Beijing News reported Sunday.
According to the Disciplinary Regulations of the Communist Party of China, these officials should be placed on probation or expelled from the Party.
Tao Shaozhang, former Party chief of Xuanyang village in Wugang, has been placed on a probationary period of one year for illegally planting 975 poppies, after which he can retain his Party membership if he does not commit any other infractions.
Officials from the Hunan provincial public security bureau said that new types of drugs were mainly transported from South China's Guangdong Province while traditional ones mainly came from Southwest China's Yunnan Province. Hunan has become the major battleground for combating drug-related crimes, and the city of Hengyang has been listed as a key city in the anti-drug program conducted by the Ministry of Public Security since 2014.
Police on drug control in Hengyang told media that public servants in the city were found to mainly consume new synthetic drugs, such as meth.
The grass-roots officials' involvement in drugs is partly due to a lack of surveillance, Zhu Lijia, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Many people in the communities or villages are not aware that they should also supervise their officials, Zhu said, calling for severe punishment of officials who behave badly.
According to China's Criminal Law, those who commit the crimes of smuggling, trafficking, transporting and manufacturing drugs, regardless of the quantity of drugs, shall be investigated for their criminal responsibility and punished.
